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Little Dorothea was barely five years old when her mother, her weak and sick mother, had taken her last breath. There in her bed she remained motionless for weeks while the tiny hands of the girl who had just been left alone searched everywhere for food to be brought to her mouth.
Little Dorothea was not stupid, she knew how to listen to her neighbors' conversations and was always attentive to the footsteps of the guards. One Two Three. She didn't know why so many people came to claim a house as destroyed as hers, invaded by mice and cockroaches, but when she saw how they where taking her mother's body from her hiding place in the deteriorated closet a certain sadness ran through her body. She had already stopped crying in her mother's chest and holding her hand, cold hand, while she slept on the floor because her mother occupied the only bed in the house. But a small part of herself had dreamed every night and every day about her mother waking up, her death being nothing but a scare.
She didn't want to believe that she had heard her last lullaby, her last words, she didn't want to believe that she had already received her last kisses and her last caresses. If she closed her eyes Little Dorothea thought she would able to see her smile again, just as she had before the disease destroyed her.
Even when she started living in the streets, sleeping under the arcades and eating the bread that kind baker gave her every day, she wasn't able to believe what was happening. It was a great state of dissociation, a constant distancing from reality. As if she was going to wake up again sleeping next to her mother enjoying her warm hugs.
Soon, Little Dorothea learned that thinking this way wouldn't take her anywhere. It was when at the fair in the central square, with so many stalls and so many people and she so hungry she thought that, perhaps, if she stole an apple, a piece bread, nothing would happen. Little Dorothea was easily discovered, the Little Dorothea that the noble children chased after while shouting justice, thief, get her.
Even when the bread was released from her hands the children didn't stop with their insults and kicks. "I'm respectable." She sobbed, "My mother raised me."
The tallest nobleman, the one who looked like the gang boss, knelt to look at her face better. Little Dorothea believed that this was a gesture of compassion, that these nobles who were the pillars of society would recognize her as a worthy person who had only stolen once, and not a dirty criminal.
"What you are is a shit orphan."
This was the first reality lesson for Little Dorothea, you are nothing to the nobles. There is no lower class worthy of their benevolence.
The second was when that kind man, an old man from a small shop, gave her the hat that she would treasure so much. Also some old shoes, telling her how they were originally from his granddaughter but that she had to go work in the fields with her parents. The old man was ill, coughed a lot, and reminded her of her mother. When one summer day she approached the shop and the smell of rot filled her nostrils, Little Dorothea didn't even bother to look inside. Nothing good lasted.
Little Dorothea slipped into the palace one day, along with other orphans who wanted to play in their gardens. She knew it was dangerous, she knew it was better to sing in the squares. But little Dorothea was so curious to know if it really was as beautiful as they told.
When they entered she preferred to separate from the group, being more interested in observing the beauties in detail. Little Dorothea wondered who in the world deserved to live surrounded by so much gold and marble, what they had done for all their dynasty to enjoy such privileges.
And, although she had already become accustomed to thinking about herself as a waste of society, in her mind remained faithfully embedded that the only form of social ascension were good acts.
The nobles had never behaved well with her, or with her mother, or with her street companions. But they must have done something very good, and she something very bad, very very bad without even realizing it, but how could she deserve such misfortunes day after day?
Little Dorothea stood in front of a enormous window, a room apparently. Inside, between golds and servants a girl of more or less her age with her back to her.
All the maids focused on her, placing her expensive and elaborated dress on that porcelain skin that couldn't afford to be spotted by the sun's rays. Her hands, delicate and without any dallouses, rested gracefully and elegantly on those of the maid who painted her nails. And her hair, her straight brown hair, so well taken care of.
All the descriptions that had been made of the princess fell short in her the presence.
And at the same time Little Dorothea looked at herself. Her ragged and dirty clothes, broken everywhere and patched even more. Her hair, tangled and poorly maintained, was poorly cut with rusty knives they found in the streets. There was no glow in it, it stuck to her sweaty brow, her fat cheeks and her dirty neck. Her hands weren't in much better condition, her irregular and ugly nails, her palms full of dirt and cuts. The only thing she considered acceptable in her appearance was the old man's hat, but comparing it to the idyllic visions of the castle it seemed nothing more than a piece of garbage.
Little Dorothea gripped her hard piece of bread and fled away from the castle. That girl and she weren't that different, right? Her body was equal to hers, there was no physical characteristic that made her divine. Maybe she had a horn, a magic horn that made her much superior to Little Dorothea. But the nobles who had kicked her hadn't had it.
She no longer believed it. Maybe she was the worst of the worst, but there was nothing in the world that justified those luxuries while she suffered every day just for something to put in her mouth. While she sang in the square and froze when it was raining, that rich baby laughed between mattresses and drank tea.
While she was searching the city garbage for a new jacket, something to fix the sole of her worn boots, that girl had never had to worry about what she wore.
And she was just a girl , she had seen it herself. So why, why did she deserve to see her friends and family die of disease, of poverty. What had they done, the poor, those who asked for miserable coins and robbed of necessity to live the misfortunes while the idle nobility rejoices in their false ideals of justice, to suffer all this?
Little Dorothea began to cry, because at her young age she didn't understand, didn't understand what she had done to deserve this. She loved her mother, but she had already forgotten how her voice sounded. She just wanted a roof to sleep under and someone to hold her hand.
Why were her small simple desires unfulfilled just because she was a waste, an orphan, while the nobles received so much?
One night outdoors crying gave her the solution. The nobles didn't deserve their status. No divine blessing justified this, and not only because Little Dorothea found it difficult to believe in the goddess. The benevolent system of doing good and you will receive fell by its own weight. She didn't have a crest, either.
That day in the streets was when the Little Dorothea was offered for the first time an opportunity of future. That woman, Manuela, so tall, so pretty, so charismatic. She was her savior, and when Little Dorothea first appeared on stage and saw her audience it was very clear for her.
Little Dorothea hated the nobles.
The feeling didn't improve during her diva stage, much less in the academy. But Little Dorothea was still smart and knew when to keep quiet.
There she met the princess again, with that silky hair and delicate hands. She could swear that her hair wasn't white, but it wouldn't be the first time her memory failed her. She had grown well, now being a beautiful teenager.
Dorothea thought every night about whether she would receive all those kind smiles if she had never left the streets. "No." She answered in her head. And it wasn't a case of low self-esteem, she knew it perfectly. She didn't need more lessons to learn how the world worked.
Little Dorothea continued to hate the nobles but it had already become a resignation. What was she going to get, getting angry knowing that nobody wouldn't treat her the same without the uniform? What would she gain from tears?
Little Dorothea discovered at this time how much she hated herself. Among the poverty she had wanted to believe that she would be brave, that she would challenge all the noble classists. But she hadn't calculated well how much they had sent her message. Every meal she ate, every friend she made and every comfort she received, she wondered, do I deserve this? I'm simply a shit orphan.
She didn't even want to think about love. The numerous dates with the guards and soldiers were easier, looking for someone to keep her for the next few years than to face the feelings for the princess.
She wanted to hate her, she wanted her to be a horrible and egocentric noble. However, she was not, she was compassionate and respectful, supported her despite her social status and talked about destroying the system that had done so much damage to so many people.
It had been impossible for Little Dorothea not to notice those lips, that way of walking and those mannerisms so typical of young ladies.
But she didn't deserve it, and so Little Dorothea cried, cried, and cried, she cried for that and many other issues, until she wasn't so little.
She liked to insinuate herself, to test waters she would never enter. "Would you go out with me?" To Ingrid, to Petra, to Edelgard. With each one harder to ask but she knew she would never do anything in the end, and neither would the others. She didn't deserve it, she was still waiting for the day she was kicked out of the Black Eagles strike force.
The teacher encouraged her from time to time, took her to see flowers and take care of the cats. And there the older Dorothea thought about Edelgard's suit, how it hugged her body and how she would have her wear other clothes. In how in the last training she had brandished her axe and how the light of the chandeliers was reflected in her eyes when she had found her reading at night.
Edelgard seemed to realize because, although she had promised herself not to dream, the older Dorothea noticed the eyes of the emperor.
Maybe, maybe if she was lucky she had a chance. She should take advantage of it, the subconscious told her, you should take advantage of it, Petra and Byleth told her.
She tried to take advantage of it, but it only resulted in a conversation about her recent inability to seek suitors. At least she was old enough to admit the tranquility she felt when she was at her side, and she prayed to the goddess they themselves had killed that please Edelgard, the magnificent and fantastic Edelgard, knew what she was talking about.
She didn't know, unfortunately she didn't know. It took several conversations, too many of them at midnight to confess a minimum of her feelings.
And looking back at that first Little Dorothea who had just lost her mother, the older Dorothea wrote as the air in the palace window made her shiver.
"Many of the life lessons we have learned together are true. But I just want to tell you how wrong you were to tell you for years that you didn't deserve happiness, not a single caress of affection under the warm light of a rising sun. Not a low kiss the moonlight, not even hands clasped under the tables,
You deserve them, and so do I.
So please hold the people you care about close to you and kiss that girl you like time and time around, because she will blush madly and you will feel as if you're in heaven. Accept happiness as it comes to you in the form of flames and challenges.
You'll suffer, you'll suffer as much as you've suffered until now and much more, you'll have the ghost of your past follow you every step you take. But there, at your side, people you rely on will lend you their hands to keep walking together. And sometimes you will fight, but giving up on them will do nothing but destroy you. I know it's hard, I know it hasn't gotten better for many, many people. Why would we be different?
But I beg you, as you watch the stars in the sky and you're lying on the floor with your back to the wall, believe in happiness. Believe in that kid that plays with you to make you smile and play with the younger kids to lift the pain from their shoulders a little. When you enter the opera and start making money visit the orphanage just as I did, the children will really thank you.
And when the emperor asks you to take her hand in a stormy dark night, hold her really close, look into her eyes and kiss her scars. I promise the maids and the gold haven't gone to her head.
With love, Dorothea von Hresvelg. "